


Of Stones and Songs

by ladysisyphus



Series: Over Hill and Under Hill [4]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-30
Updated: 2015-01-30
Packaged: 2018-03-09 17:53:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,517
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3258944
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not enough could be said for the change that being at Beorn's homestead -- the closest they'd come to civilization in far too long, by Bilbo's own estimate -- brought about the group.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Stones and Songs

Not enough could be said for the change that being at Beorn's homestead -- the closest they'd come to civilization in far too long, by Bilbo's own estimate -- brought about the group. The forward momentum of the journey had been such that its inertia had become a weary yet necessary part of Bilbo's whole way of thinking. To wake and not have to look to a spot on the horizon and think _we'll be twice that far by nightfall_ was a blessing to a hobbit. He'd expected the company to be restless, but not one of Thorin's party had raised a voice of complaint at the idea of staying put for a few days. Even Thorin himself had scarcely mounted a protest against Gandalf's insistence that a few days' rest now would speed them in the long run, and thanks to Beorn's hospitality, rest was what they had available to them -- and indeed, rest was what the company had in mind.

The company, that was, save Bilbo, who, depending on one's point of view, was either a very good guest or a very terrible one. He had sat around for precisely half a morning before asking Beorn what he could do to help out around the place, and thus found himself shucking a small mountain of peas into a slightly less mountainous bucket. _Wouldn't they be fine with some ham!_ he'd thought, but considering Beorn's attitudes toward the animals that congregated around his house, Bilbo told his stomach not to get its hopes up.

Gandalf sat nearby, fussing at his pipe and looking at a book in his lap; it took Bilbo a moment to recognize it as the one Ori treasured so dearly and was always scribbling into. Every so often, the old wizard would smile as he turned the page, puffing soft grey smoke into air.

It seemed a shame to break the mid-morning stillness with chatter, yet as he worked, Bilbo felt a question rolling around in his head, winding its way down through the canals and channels of his head until it reached his mouth and popped right off the tip of his tongue: "Gandalf," he began, and when he was certain he had the old wizard's attention, he continued, "why isn't -- _why_ isn't Thorin the king?"

One snowy eyebrow lifted to a thoughtful perch. "Why do you ask?" Gandalf replied after a moment's consideration, his words not challenging but curious.

"It's just--" No fewer than a half-dozen times since had Bilbo been told the story of what he'd missed in Goblin-town, and though the stories differed with perspective, every teller to a man (or to a dwarf, Bilbo supposed) had lingered on the great affront of the Great Goblin, who had, despite obviously being aware of Thorin's rank and pedigree, treated their company leader with none of the respect due either. This had infuriated the dwarves, who on the whole seemed to think that planning to torture and kill them had amounted to less of an insult. "Well, he should be. It'd make more sense for him to be the king than to not be the king. Everyone here seems to behave as though he's the king. But he's _not_ , is he? For some reason, he's not."

Gandalf nodded, turning a page in the book. "Well, as the simplest matter of it, he is not the next in line. That would be his father, Thrain."

Bilbo's thumb slid down along the seam of a bright green pod and out popped several fat peas. He had to fight the urge to toss them into his mouth just as they were, or he'd spoil his supper. "See, I thought about that, but I don't think that's the whole reason. If it were, Thorin would be out searching for his father instead of trying to sneak into a mountain under what is apparently a very keen dragon's nose."

"Perceptive as always, Master Baggins." Gandalf took a deep breath from his pipe and blew two concentric smoke rings; Bilbo did his best not to encourage him further by looking impressed. "No, I should say that no matter his condition, dead or alive, Thrain would be in no state to challenge Thorin's right to the throne. Indeed, I suspect that even had no calamity befallen Erebor, he would have been just as glad passing the crown from his father to his son, had Thorin made clear that was his desire."

"See, that's what I don't get about kings," said Bilbo, continuing his work as he spoke. "Seems a rubbish sort of thing: You're born into it and you don't want to do it, well, you haven't much of a choice, have you? Whereas you're _not_ born into it and you _do_ want to do it, good luck with that."

Even from out the corner of his eye, Bilbo could see amusement working its way across Gandalf's face. "Spoken like a true hobbit."

"Yes, well, s'what I am, after all." As a child, Bilbo had read stories about kings and queens and thought the whole business of monarchy to be quite romantic. That, of course, had been before he'd had a chance to meet a king (and he might even have met _two_ , as Elrond had seemed rather important, though Bilbo couldn't swear to his exact rank) and concluded that the whole mess was such a bother, he didn't know why anyone went in for it.

Gandalf puffed away at his pipe as he spoke: "A kingly line may be established by great deeds, though the assumption that such greatness will pass from father to son is not a certain one by any means. In the normal course of things, doubtless no one would have questioned the right of Thorin, son of Thrain, son of Thror, of the line of Durin, to rule. But Thorin _Oakenshield_ , now, he holds claim from a much more tenuous position, and those who are already inclined to refuse him fealty -- and by this, of course, I mean reluctant to battle a dragon head-on, nor could one blame them -- now have grounds for doing so."

"I don't get -- he's the _king_ ," Bilbo said, thinking of the way the others in the company were ready to live and die at Thorin's word, to defer to him in all matters great and small, to follow him through rock and into fire. "That's how kings work, isn't it? No matter what, he's never going to become any _more_ the old king's grandson."

"Perhaps not," Gandalf agreed with a chuckle, "but he _can_ acquire a symbol of his authority others would recognize."

Now this was sounding familiar. "Is this that ... that Arkenstone business?"

Nodding, Gandalf exhaled a great plume of smoke. Watching that was more than enough to make Bilbo miss his own favorite pipe, which had been another item forgotten in his mad morning dash from his home. "That's what I don't understand, though," Bilbo continued with a sigh. "It's a rock, isn't it? And that's all it is, unless someone's neglected to tell me. A very pretty rock, but a rock nonetheless. No magic powers or secret functions or the like. It doesn't unlock a door. It won't call down lightning or let you speak with fish. It doesn't _do_ anything."

Gandalf shut the book on his lap, tracing the edges of its heavy cover with his fingertips. "Oh, it does quite a bit -- more, I daresay, than do even the most multi-purposed of stones of power. It is a symbol, and what it does is that it _means_ something."

"But that's just it!" exclaimed Bilbo, aware that his frustration was starting to show through his voice, but unable to temper it. Thorin was putting himself through so much (to say nothing of what he was doing to everyone else), and the fact that it seemed like such a massive undertaking for such a petty errand did not sit right with Bilbo at all. "What can it mean that isn't true already? His people oughtn't _need_ it. Those in our company have come with him of their own free will because they believe in him. He will be the same man when he stands before his people holding it as he was when he stood before them without, only _now_ they'll see his quality?" Bilbo shook his head, adding a tongue cluck of disapproval for good measure. "His people shouldn't need a rock -- even a _very_ pretty rock -- for that."

With a slow smile that Bilbo would recall later looked rather sad, Gandalf leaned forward and took a pod from Bilbo's stack. "Oh, no, dear Bilbo, you miss my meaning," he said, snapping it open between his fingers. "Thorin Oakenshield is the one who needs it most of all."

 

~*~

 

They would leave the following morning, it was decided, except instead of a good night's sleep to prepare for the continued journey, the dwarves were more inclined toward a good night's merriment. To his great surprise, Bilbo found himself in agreement with this sentiment. If there was one thing their journey thus far had taught him, it was to grab such chances for joy when they could be had.

He'd quite come to like Beorn -- true enough that the skin-changer made a terrifying bear, but as a man, he could be agreeable and even charming when he so chose. Besides, he had a great deal of body hair, which was something Bilbo found quite comforting on an instinctual sort of level. And he brewed and served a most potent mead, though Bilbo was now starting to regret that fact as he saw the bottom of his tankard for a third time. Or was it a fourth? He sank into the pile of hay that had become his armchair for the evening and resolved to become better at counting.

Dori finished serenading them all with some great, lilting dwarvish ballad, and though he could see Nori rolling his eyes at his brother's theatrical performance, Bilbo found he'd rather enjoyed it and applauded sincerely as Dori bowed to the room. Dori looked grateful and even clapped Bilbo on the shoulder as he returned to his seat. "Well then," Bilbo said, looking around, "who's next?"

"Who's next?" echoed Bofur with a laugh. "Why, Master Hobbit, we've not heard from you this evening! Why don't you stand and answer your own question?"

The dwarves gave an uproarious cheer at this, and Bilbo might have burrowed all the way down into the hay to escape, much as gophers did, had a merry Fíli not grabbed his right hand and a merrier Kíli grabbed his left, and both together hauled him onto shaky feet. "Oh, no, I--" He reached out a hand to steady himself and found the closest motionless surface to be the warm stones above the fireplace. "Oh, but ... but you all were doing so well without me."

"And now we're even better for you!" exclaimed Óin, turning his ear-trumpet (which had certainly seen better days, though it hadn't given up yet) toward Bilbo. "Surely one of the Shire-folk has not run out of songs!"

"Well--" Bilbo knew better than to let himself be baited like that, and yet, the room was soft and he was warm and the more he thought on it, the more the phrase 'a matter of honor' seemed to apply here as much as to anything else. "Well, of course not, but you see, I've -- I've not -- there's none appropriate coming to mind at just this moment, so perhaps we could wait a bit, and then see if I--"

"What was it you were humming to yourself this afternoon?" asked a deep, soft voice that stopped the room, and Bilbo looked wide-eyed to see Thorin, half-lost in the shadows. When Bilbo made no immediate answer, Thorin stepped forward into the hearth's light. He had such strong, handsome features -- Bilbo had been aware of this from the start, and did not think that anything more than an objective estimation, the same any reasonable person would have come to presented with the same -- and daylight and moonlight alike sharpened them as a whetstone might the edge of a knife, until he cut a profile that seemed capable indeed of cutting.

But in the dim, warm glow of the hearth, he became soft, as the dancing lights upon his face gave its angles cause to shift and sway. The stern lines of his brow were not so steep, nor was the set of his mouth such a firm line. Indeed, Bilbo saw as he looked closer, Thorin was even smiling. From any other of the company, Bilbo might have assumped that meant he was being mocked, but he did not think Thorin capable of such a thing, nor interested if he had been. No, it was a true smile, with true tenderness behind it. Bilbo didn't think of hobbits as false, not especially, and certainly no more than the stories made men or dark creatures or even elves out to be, but there had indeed been an adjustment period when faced with the unvarnished honesty of dwarves.

"Well?" asked Nori, and it was then Bilbo realized he'd been staring, and for how long he knew not. "What was it, then?"

"Ah, er." Bilbo scrunched up his nose in thought. "...Beg pardon?"

Balin was seated close enough that he was able to reach over and give Bilbo an affectionate poke in his side. "The tune, laddie. From earlier."

"Oh!" Bilbo Baggins, on the other hand, was a _fantastic_ liar -- so good, indeed, that he wasn't known for being one at all. But by that point, he'd had some truly uncountable number of cups of mead, and the only tune that came to his mind was the honest answer to the question. "Ah, it's -- well, when I've time to myself, I sometimes busy my thoughts with a bit of doggerel here and there. It was just a little ditty, nothing really much yet."

It was no use; the promise of a debut of a new work from Bilbo Baggins, composer, brought the room to a roar with delight. Beorn himself clapped his paw-like hands together with encouragement, and even Ori, who had nodded off in a pile of uncarded lamb's wool near Bifur's feet, roused himself to cheer along. "All right, but it's _really_ not much," said Bilbo, tapping his foot to set the time. But the jolly drunken tone of the room brought everything up a beat, until the momentum _much_ too fast by the time Bilbo was ready to sing to have stopped. There was nothing for it, then, but to have a go:

_Together set we on our quest_  
      _To face the fearsome dragon!_  
 _But the long hard march beat spirits down,_  
      _And we felt our good chear flagging--_

_But when we felt we'd lost our way_  
      _And trod all we could tread,_  
 _We gazed upon fair wingéd Hope_  
      _Perched on dear Bofur's head!_

_Sing a-hi-dee-dee, one-two-three,_  
      _Perched on dear Bofur's head!_

They had been enthusiastic before, but with the mention of Bofur's name, the company erupted with such glee that Bilbo was surprised the roof did not shake loose from the rafters and bury them all in a heap. Bofur, for his own part, tore his now-storied hat off and waved it about, making the kind of noises someone who had never encountered a bird might think birds would make. Bilbo'd had no intention of continuing on past the first verse, but he was dancing now, a little jig his feet had started without his consent, and thus he couldn't help continuing:

_If this crown be the crown he'd choose,_  
      _What title would be fitter?_  
 _The king of nests and suet sticks?_  
      _Of coo and chirp and twitter?_

_Thus when from fire our rescue came_  
      _They nearly took him home--_  
 _The mighty eagles surely thought_  
      _They'd grabbed one of their own!_

_Sing a-hi-dee-dee, one-two-three,_  
      _They'd grabbed one of their own!_

As he sang about bird sounds, he heard a trilling noise and turned to see that Dori had snatched Bofur's pennywhistle and begun to play along with the tune. Bombur grabbed a small barrel from near his chair and commandeered it as an impromptu drum, and Kíli stretched a single string taught between his thumbs, letting Fíli pluck at it in time to a surprisingly accurate pitch. Faced with such an orchestral accompaniment, despite the fact that the third verse was still a work in progress, he barreled into it anyway at full force:

_Now dwarves prefer their mountain homes_  
      _And birds live in the aether--_  
 _But a chap who can blend in in both_  
      _Will be lonely in neither!_

_So what was it transpired that day_  
      _While eagles were transporting?_  
 _We hung on for our very lives_  
      _While Bofur here was courting!_

_Sing a-hi-dee-dee, one-two-three,_  
      _While Bofur here was courting!_

"And you've _got_ to believe me," said Bilbo, slumping forward and bracing his hands on his knees, catching his breath even as he couldn't help laughing, "I've no more than that."

No more seemed necessary; the roaring acclaim let Bilbo know that even his lackluster third verse had been a success. Bofur, for his own part, seemed elated that Bilbo had written an entire song about his hat and possible romantic proclivities toward birds, and he grabbed Bilbo up in an embrace so joyous and fierce that it left Bilbo a little breathless. Before he was allowed to return to his hay pile, someone else thrust another tankard of mead into his hands, and at that point, it seemed ruder _not_ to drink it.

Thus, several songs and more than a few dirty stories later, Bilbo was startled when he was jarred awake into a room where the only sounds were the shufflings of bodies and the crackle of logs on the fire. A figure bent above him, and he jerked with surprise for a moment before his eyes focused their way up from sleep. Oh, Thorin. "Did I--?"

Wth a soft sigh, Thorin lay several heavy blankets down over Bilbo. "Get some rest. The morning will be on us sooner than any of us would like."

It was a reasonable suggestion, a reasonable one indeed, and Bilbo resolved to take it -- just as soon as he figured out why Thorin had a small hand stroking his face, or why that hand was attached to Bilbo's own arm. That was strange; such a thing hardly seemed like him at all. "So soft," he said, feeling the short bristles of Thorin's beard run coarse and then smooth again beneath his fingertips. "How do you get your beard so soft?"

As the fire was behind him, Thorin's expression was mostly shrouded in shadow, but he did not scowl at the question, nor did he draw away. "To bed with our master burglar and bard, I should think."

"Is it magic? Is it dwarf magic?" Bilbo hadn't felt many beards in his life -- and none intentionally, to his recollection -- but he could recall having brushed up against the prickly whiskers of nearly all the other dwarves in the company. Thorin's felt different, though, perhaps because he kept his shorter, or perhaps because of magic. It might well have been magic.

"It's called a beard, I remind you," said Thorin, who at last drew back, though to the end of draping another blanket over Bilbo's feet, one which Bilbo kicked off again just as soon as Thorin was done fixing it in place.

"Yes, but -- but it's soft." The hay beneath Bilbo's head was prickly as well, though not altogether unpleasant, and the sweet grassy smell made him think of all the days he'd spent napping in fields as a youth, sometimes alone, sometimes with a companion (in which case the napping itself came a bit later). Bilbo made though to reach for Thorin again, but his hand was trapped under a blanket now, and it was too much effort to extract it. "It's a very nice beard. I like it just the way it is." Bilbo gave an affirming nod as he shut his eyes. Like as not he'd remember none of this, come morning. "Very sensible. No soup in the king's beard. Very sensible indeed."

He felt a hand atop his head push his curls into a comforting ruffle, and Bilbo leaned into the touch, sighing as he melted into sleep. Maybe that touch had been someone else, someone more paternal, such as Balin or Glóin, but he wanted to believe it was Thorin. He needed to believe it was Thorin. He could at least, in this moment if no other, admit that. _And when was it you were listening to me sing without my noticing?_ he meant to ask, he really did, but his tongue grew tangled and fell loose, and would not rise again. His senses were dulled by mead and exhaustion and contentment, but so far as he could tell, someone who might very well have been Thorin Oakenshield stayed close at his side as dreaming crept up on Bilbo Baggins and snatched him away.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted at <http://ladysisyphus.livejournal.com/879822.html>. Obviously the movie timeline has been fudged a bit. Oh well!
> 
> There is exactly one person I know in the world I'd trust to do a correct JRR Tolkien song pastiche. But he's not here, so you've got me, plus something that's about equal parts [The Brobdingnagian Bards 'A Fairy Story'](http://www.thebards.net/music/lyrics/A_Fairy_Story.shtml) and [The Night Paddy Murphy Died](http://www.wtv-zone.com/phyrst/audio/nfld/06/diedjb.htm).
> 
> I want credit for the incredible restraint shown in _not_ naming this piece 'Anyway, Here's Wonderwall'.


End file.
